technology in India 2: Devipuram
As I reflect on my memories of Devipuram, I am hearing, through a good set of headphones and the miracle of mp3, the voice of its Guru, Amritananda reciting a mantra he taught us when we were there.
Paradox is evident everywhere in Benares: in the nearly boundless seam between life and death on the ghats, in the pairing everywhere of terrible pollution with equisite beauty, in the intimate relation of creation and destruction. In Shiva's city, paradox manifests big, archetypal.
In Devipuram, the Abode of the Goddess, it glares less.
In some ways, Devipuram was the most primitive place in which we stayed. We slept on cots under thin blankets in beautiful little domes,
and ate simple food mostly cooked on the floor. There was no electricity in my half of the dome. The dogs eat the garbage but the crows get it first.
At some point I wrote in my journal:
"Tuesday (?) (date?)
There is a small dog lying next to me, one of many, though this is the skinniest. Never have I seen such a thin creature, all ribs, every bone visible, a living skeleton.
I think she will die soon, because she doesn't have the strength to fight the other dogs for food."
Yet in the morning, when we climbed the hill to the highest of the temples and did yoga,
or in the evening, when we went up again to sing , it couldn't have been more beautiful.
The Sri Vidya tradition is based on the image of the Sri Yantra and its associated mythology and metaphysics. The main temple at Devipuram is a three-dimensional Shri Yantra, with 108 manifestations of the Goddess on its petals.
Another journal entry, notes from a book borrowed at Devipuram called Sricakram: Its Geometry and Metaphysics (G. S.Murty) begins with a drawing of an equilateral triangle inscribed in a circle. It reads,
"The center of a circle does not change no matter how many diameters are drawn - this infers the existence of an invariable among variables.
The triangle is a metaphysical symbol of the triad, sattva, tamas and rajas, the gunas - 'guna' indicates a rope or chord that can bind together two objects - according to Vedanta, the visible world is a play of the three gunas.
'Thus we arrive at the realization that the universe of multiplicity is supported by ONE invisible truth, the center of the circle.' p.15."
The Abode of the Goddess.
Paradox is evident everywhere in Benares: in the nearly boundless seam between life and death on the ghats, in the pairing everywhere of terrible pollution with equisite beauty, in the intimate relation of creation and destruction. In Shiva's city, paradox manifests big, archetypal.
In Devipuram, the Abode of the Goddess, it glares less.
In some ways, Devipuram was the most primitive place in which we stayed. We slept on cots under thin blankets in beautiful little domes,
and ate simple food mostly cooked on the floor. There was no electricity in my half of the dome. The dogs eat the garbage but the crows get it first.
At some point I wrote in my journal:
"Tuesday (?) (date?)
There is a small dog lying next to me, one of many, though this is the skinniest. Never have I seen such a thin creature, all ribs, every bone visible, a living skeleton.
I think she will die soon, because she doesn't have the strength to fight the other dogs for food."
Yet in the morning, when we climbed the hill to the highest of the temples and did yoga,
or in the evening, when we went up again to sing , it couldn't have been more beautiful.
The Sri Vidya tradition is based on the image of the Sri Yantra and its associated mythology and metaphysics. The main temple at Devipuram is a three-dimensional Shri Yantra, with 108 manifestations of the Goddess on its petals.
Another journal entry, notes from a book borrowed at Devipuram called Sricakram: Its Geometry and Metaphysics (G. S.Murty) begins with a drawing of an equilateral triangle inscribed in a circle. It reads,
"The center of a circle does not change no matter how many diameters are drawn - this infers the existence of an invariable among variables.
The triangle is a metaphysical symbol of the triad, sattva, tamas and rajas, the gunas - 'guna' indicates a rope or chord that can bind together two objects - according to Vedanta, the visible world is a play of the three gunas.
'Thus we arrive at the realization that the universe of multiplicity is supported by ONE invisible truth, the center of the circle.' p.15."
The Abode of the Goddess.
posted by Eve at 10:43 AM
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